Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Road Rules-set of clues and a mission


Road Rules, MTV's second reality show, debuted on July 19, 1995. The series followed six strangers between the ages of 18 and 24 (five strangers in the first four seasons) after stripping them of their money and putting them on an RV traveling from location to location only guided by a set of clues and a mission to complete at each location. It was nominated for an Emmy Award in 2001.

There was also a 1998 mini-series, Road Rules: The Real World All-Stars, in which five former stars from The Real World go on a short Road Rules course managed by infamous former Real World housemate Puck, who, until the very end of the series, was disguising h
is identity with the alias "Mr. Big". However, this is generally considered the first season of Real World/Road Rules Challenge.

Monday, March 30, 2009

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Road safety - public health and injury prevention

Road safety aims to reduce the harm (deaths, injuries, and property damage) resulting from crashes of road vehicles. Harm from road traffic crashes is greater than that from all other transportation modes (air, sea, space, off-terrain, etc.) combined.

Road safety deals exclusively with road traffic crashes – how to reduce their number and their consequences. A road traffic crash is an event involving a road vehicle that results in harm. For reasons of clear data collection, only harm involving a road vehicle is included. A person tripping with fatal consequences on a public road is not included as a road-traffic fatality. To be counted a pedestrian fatality, the victim must be struck by a road vehicle.

Road traffic crashes are one of the world’s largest public health and injury prevention problems. The problem is all the more acute because the victims are overwhelmingly healthy prior to their crashes. According to the World Health Organization more than a million people are killed on the world’s roads each year.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Driving skills

Driving in traffic is more than just knowing how to operate the mechanisms which control the vehicle; it requires knowing how to apply the rules of the road (which govern safe and efficient sharing with other users). An effective driver also has an intuitive understanding of the basics of vehicle handling.

In terms of the basic physical tasks required, a driver must be able to control direction, acceleration, and deceleration. For motor vehicles, the detailed tasks include:

* Starting the vehicle's engine with the starting system
* Setting the transmission to the correct gear
* Depressing the pedals with one's feet to accelerate, slow, and stop the vehicle, and if the vehicle is equipped with a manual transmission, to modulate the clutch
* Steering the vehicle's direction with the steering wheel
* Operating other important ancillary devices such as the indicators, headlights, and windshield wipers

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Cruising (driving)

Cruising is a social activity that primarily consists of driving a car. Cruising can be an expression of the perceived freedom of possessing a driver's license. Cruising is distinguished from regular driving by the social and recreational nature of the activity, which characterized by an impulsively random, often aimless course. A popular route (or "strip") is often the focus of cruising. "Cruise nights" are evenings during which cars drive slowly, bumper-to-bumper, through small towns.

Perhaps the most famous cruising strip (or main drag) is McHenry Avenue in Modesto, California. The cruising culture of the early 1960s was depicted in the film American Graffiti. The film was set (but not actually filmed) in director George Lucas' home town of Modesto, which also hosts an annual "Graffiti Night" celebration in the film's honor.

Cruising in Detroit took place from the 1950s to the 1970s in the city's northern suburbs along Woodward Avenue, from Ferndale north to Pontiac. Cruising along Woodward reached its peak in the mid 1960s, with muscle car competitions that were covered by journalists from Car and Driver, Motor Trend, and CBS World News Roundup. The cruising culture on Woodward Avenue faded in the 1970s when new car safety standards and higher gas prices altered American automotive design.

The Woodward Dream Cruise occurs on the third Saturday in August along the original cruising strip in Detroit's northern suburbs. The event is a tribute to the classic Woodward cruisers and attracts approximately 1 million people and 40,000 muscle cars, street rods, and custom, collector, and special interest vehicles.

Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Roundabout - type of road junction

A roundabout is a type of road junction at which traffic enters a one-way stream around a central island. In the United States it is commonly known as a "rotary" or a "traffic circle", but sometimes is technically called a modern roundabout, in order to emphasize the distinction from the older, very much larger type of traffic circle which usually had poor or no visibility across the central island.

In countries where people drive on the right, the traffic flow around the central island of a roundabout is counterclockwise. In countries where people drive on the left, the traffic flow is clockwise.

Overall, roundabouts are statistically safer than both traffic circles and traditional intersections, with the exception that cyclists have a significantly increased crash rate at large roundabout. Roundabouts do not cope as well with the traffic on motorways, highways, or similar fast roads.

Roundabouts are sometimes referred to as "traffic circles" or "rotaries", but a technical distinction was made in some jurisdictions between roundabouts, traffic circles, and rotaries in the mid-1960s. Starting in that decade, research in the United Kingdom found that circular intersections with certain geometric characteristics and traffic control schemes tended to be safer than those without them.